Showing posts with label Rohingya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rohingya. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Crackdown

As the army cracks down on peaceful protesters after the coup,
the violence that is commonplace in the countryside
serves as a grisly reminder of the military legacy of atrocities.
— New York Times
Courtesy: @nytimes (Twitter)

We're strangers in a familiar place

Confined to our homes in a solid cage. 

The things that ought

To work for our salvation,

Wakes a trail of desolation.

In my homeland

Blood runs thicker than sand,

Freedom put a stake thru our hearts:

Freedom to express who we are,

Freedom to choose our own path,

Freedom to demonstrate

And not get shot at;

Freedom to have our say

On who runs the affairs of state.

It's hard to get past

The image in your mind,

'Specially when you got stabbed

By your own tool, from behind.

They threw our leaders in jail

Our women keep getting raped.

It's the only way, or they're dead…

With gunshot wounds to the head.

Soldiers patrolling every street,

So now it's kill season

And dead bodies keep increasing

Yet nobody's out to give one reason,

Asking question's perceived treason.

But we still bleeding

And the junta ain't ceding

Yet the whole world ain't heeding

So, who are we kidding? 


Akpan


Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Gon' Be A Great Day

Rohingyan Boy with Sesame Street Muppet
Courtesy: UNHCR


It's gonna be a great day today

I don't know what else to say

But this much is my take;

The weather's as good as it gets

So ama suck in a lungful of breath,

Then step out on the exhale. 

It's gonna be a great day today.

The sun plugged the leak of rain

So ama put the wind in my sail,

Ain't letting this feeling in a cage

I'm gonna bust these bars of rage,

It's gon' be a great day today.


Akpan


Thursday, December 10, 2020

Final Wish

Gul Zahar, the 90 year old Rohingya refugee who
passed away recently in Kupalong refugee camp in
Bangladesh. She never lived to see her final wish of
returning to a peaceful Myanmar fulfilled.
This poem is to her memory
.
Photo Courtesy: UNHCR

All of twenty five years,

Each moment racked by a spate of tears,

I've been betrayed by hope

Into thinking a lifetime of sorrow

Would bring forth a new tomorrow.

Myanmar, I wish I was your Genie

So I could clinch your soil

Once again, in the ball of my fist.

Hate would hear my voice and recoil,

And I will grant your seeds this final wish:

They will run away nevermore!

Now my soul returns to its Maker

My eyes unseeing the salvation of Myanmar.

My body expires after ninety years sojourn

In exile in the makeshift tents of Kupalong.

My one regret remains that lost final wish,

I missed my long walk to freedom and peace.


Akpan


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